Greetings, we are in a brand new sermon series on the book of Acts, and we've entitled it The Empowered Church. In Acts, we meet a group of underprivileged, uneducated, poor peasants, powerless, who are given this massive happy gospel from our Lord Jesus Christ, good news in a bad news world, and this little group begins a gospel ministry movement that transformed the ancient world. Now how does this happen? And why isn't this happening in our modern day, in our modern world? You know, the happy news of what God has done in Jesus is readily available. You realize there's 7.5 billion Bibles in print in over 500 languages worldwide. If my math is right, that's one Bible per person in the world. So why aren't people changing? Why is our world as bad off as it is? Why isn't everyone soaking it up? Why aren't our churches packed with people? Here's why. The Word of God alone won't get it done. It has to come with power. It has to come with power. This power becomes available when we commit to pray. That's where we left off last week. Acts 1, you have this group, small group, of poor peasant disciples who gather together devoted to prayer. And we ended last week with a call to pray, a call to really pray, to pray big. I asked the question, if God answered every single one of your prayers that you prayed last week, how much heaven would you see on the earth that you prayed for? And how much would you look more like Jesus Christ? Remember, I challenged us to pray big. So how did you do? Crickets. I'll be the first to confess. I didn't pray like I wish I could. Wish I would have. Did you struggle too? Here's why. Listen to Ray Ortlund. It is rare today to see a passion for prayer as the essence of gospel ministry, but I also believe it is futile to try to work people up into prayer. It just doesn't get results beyond a surge of enthusiasm that soon wears off. I know of only one infallible way to get a church praying and to keep it praying. For the power of God to come down, we need to fail. We need to fail so badly and so obviously that we find out how much we really do just trust ourselves rather than God. We need to be shocked by the collapse. Friends, welcome to the second half of Acts chapter one. Please turn in your Bibles to Acts one, starting in verse 15. Now hear the word of our God. In those days, Peter stood up among the brothers. The company of persons was in all about 120 and said, Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry. Now this man acquired a field with the reward of his wickedness, and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle, and all his bowels gushed out. And it became known to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem, that the field was called in their own language, Akldama, which that is field of blood. For it is written in the book of Psalms, may his camp become desolate and let there be no one to dwell in it and let another take his office. So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us, one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection. And they put forward to Joseph called Barsabbas, who is also called Justice, and Matthias. And they prayed and said, you Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside to go to his own place. And they cast lots for them, and the lot fell on Matthias, and he was numbered with the 11 apostles. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we're asking that in these mere moments we have, you'll do something momentous. Shake us up. Pour out your Spirit. Help us to see the Gospel and the power of the Gospel, which only comes when we see Jesus and the Spirit of Him works in our hearts and lives. We ask and pray in Jesus' name. Amen. So I have to say that while I love to dig into the word, have a new text to preach each and every week, I came to this text a lot less excited than I normally do because I didn't really see its significance. Plus, it seems to be like this little minor note in between these two giant crescendos. I mean, last week, Jesus ascends up into heaven, right into glory, and says the promise of the Father's coming. Next week, Acts 2, Pentecost. The Holy Spirit rushes upon the church, there's flames of fire, people speaking in tongues, and 3,000 converts in one day. But in the middle you've got this little tiny scene about apostasy and apostleship. They replace Judas with Matthias, and he gets no further press. You never hear his name again in the Bible. Why in the world is this important? Okay, this scene shows us our need for leaders, right? In fact, that's important today. We're gonna be nominating officers. But actually, most of this is about the gruesome death of Judas the traitor. And it's pretty graphic. Did you hear what I read? He bursts open, his bowels gush out. The place he dies is known as the field of blood forever. You know, why is this Beetlejuice scene, you know, with Michael Keaton without the humor in the middle of our text here? Think about this, why this look into the rear view mirror, the worst tragedy of the early church, when they got the windshield, Acts 2 coming, Pentecost. I got to thinking about it and verses 17 to 19 stuck out to me. Peter, speaking of Judas, this man who's betrayed them, he says, for he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry. Peter's saying, you remember Judas? He was one of our main ministers. He was a primary pastor. He was a guy who was with us. But what Judas did when he double-crossed our Savior Jesus, he broke our hearts. And it was a public scandal. A public scandal. Did you notice Luke adds, he puts in parentheses, all this came into the spotlight. Not just the betrayal, but his humiliating death by suicide. It became known, verse 19, to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem. Pastor Judas' death was headline news in the capital. See the Jerusalem Times? Two-timing, greedy Judas It comes to a bloody end. Headline news. This guy, handpicked by Jesus. Jesus ordained this guy. Public ministry gave him power. Judas, he had a good reputation. He was always concerned about the poor, right? He was actually their treasurer. And then the money scandal. He sells Jesus off for 30 pieces of silver. and now he receives his just dues after the scandal comes out. Oh, and if anyone's digging further into this early Christian movement, they're hearing about Peter and his public denial as well, right? And all the other disciples, all the other apostles who ran away hiding. Now fast forward, it's not even two months later and Jesus says, guess what guys? Now we're ready to go. I want you to go out and start spreading the news and get people to join this movement right after this public scandal. Do you think anybody in Jewish culture, much less the larger Roman Empire, wants to join this movement? Here's the question. Can the gospel be credible when its leaders aren't? That's a lot of relevance to today, isn't it? You ever run into people? I think sometimes the number one obstacle to sharing Jesus' message is this. Joel, look at your churches. That's a conversation stopper, isn't it? Consider the avalanche of scandals just this year. Steve Lawson, Robert Morris, Tony Evans. By the way, multiple pastors in our presbytery have all confessed sin this year. The collapse in 2024 has actually rocked me personally. Even though I grew up witnessing scandals, anybody remember Jimmy Swaggart? How about Jim Baker? How about the Catholic cover-up that just never seems to stop? I know many local pastors I grew up watching, grew up under. So my generation was busy singing R.E.M., losing my religion, and walked away from the church. And I'm glad you haven't ditched. You're here this morning, but you tend to come here sometimes with shields up. Are you seeing why God included this scene now? The early church was actually birthed out of failure, out of scandal. Church scandal, dishonesty, betrayal, trauma at the highest levels, right there within our ranks. This is not a modern problem. The church has always been a mess. It just seems bigger because it's all social media now, right? So as an aside, don't let the processed junk of social media spoil your appetite for church. Every failure should be a diet to get you on to prayer, a diet of prayer and being in God's word, which can nourish our soul and our community. My point today is Acts 1 helps us, helps Heart City to become a safe space and can help us impact a dying world out there. First thing we experience in our text, first point, the certainty of sovereignty. Sovereignty is not a word we use much, but it's really, really important. Sovereignty speaks of God's absolute royal authority over everything in all of time, space, history. Absolute control. That's why Heart City exists to make known the heart of King Jesus. King Jesus. You see, the Lord Jesus is in heaven right now, ruling over this world, everything in it, the entire cosmos. And yet, he has a heart that's gentle. That's how he started his service. That means he's kind. It means Jesus is safe. He also has a heart that is lowly. That means Jesus is approachable. He's accessible. He's the most accessible person on the planet. And he wants you, he says, come to me and learn from me. He wants you to walk with him, to walk with him. When you first become a Christian, isn't that just wonderful? You begin to experience Jesus and you're just walking with him hand in hand. But he also wants you in that. begin to discover the certainty of his sovereignty, especially when you start to enter scary situations. Let me illustrate. You're walking with Jesus hand in hand. It's wonderful, all right? Turn your eyes upon Jesus. You look up at him as you're walking as a child. Look full on his wonderful face. And the things of this world grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. But it's not always like that. Sometimes you're walking and Suddenly the things of this world are strangely distinct and dark. Maybe you're walking with Jesus hand in hand and suddenly you see a couple of evil villains, greedy, seedy characters, knives at their side, looking at you ready to pounce. Ball in your throat. Get tight in your chest. You look at them, they're looking at you, and you look up at Jesus. You know what you don't want to see at that moment. You don't want to see a kind, smiling, gentle Jesus, do you? You want to see a Jesus who has a face that turns into a thundercloud at that moment. You want a Jesus who has confidence and anger, and you want to grip on your hand so tight from Jesus at that moment that any other case would feel uncomfortable at this moment, it's saying, you know what, even if you let me go, I'm not letting you go. And you need a Jesus who's gonna scoop you up in his arms at that point. And as you walk by those guys, he's gonna say, don't you dare even lay a hand on my beloved. Don't you dare. You will wish you had never been born. That illustration, I think, helps us to understand why Peter suddenly begins quoting the Old Testament. His eyes are opened to actually a couple of dark, dark psalms in the Old Testament. He quotes Psalm 69 and Psalm 109. Go home and read them tonight. They're called imprecatory psalms. They're psalms that call down curses on anyone who wants to harm God's people. We don't sing them in church very much. They're not family friendly. May his camp become desolate and may no one ever dwell in his house there anymore. May another take that man's office. Actually, I was just talking with someone last week. They said, I don't like the Old Testament because God speaks really harshly about sin. He comes across as a God who's going to rain fire on you. He can destroy us at will. I don't like that. Friends, you cannot have a safe church without a sovereign Savior. who will sometimes rain thunderbolts down. The Bible says, Jesus says, the gates of hell will not prevail against his church, but guess what, the gates of hell are certainly trying, aren't they? Good news, friends, it's not that God is some father figure, like a jolly Santa Claus up in the sky, which some pastors posit, because they don't preach the whole Bible, I'm not touching that Old Testament stuff, no. We have a God who will protect His church, will protect His people. This is an important moment, I think, because the Apostle Peter is suddenly seeing red-letter Bible everywhere. You guys remember the Bibles that have, you know, all the Jesus words in red? And that's fine, that's great. Helps you identify those. But Peter is now seeing red letters in these Old Testament Psalms. He sees, actually, that the Spirit of Christ, Spirit of Jesus, the Holy Spirit, was speaking through David a thousand years ago, a thousand years before Jesus was born, to tell the church about Judas. Huh. One commentator says, the reason we have these Psalms in the Bible is so that God's people reflect on the way God acts and cares for the righteous who cry out to God, because we're going to be persecuted. or we're going to experience betrayal. This is really good news, right, for a church that's traumatized by betrayal from someone right in their ranks. Isn't that great? The moment you're saying, Jesus, I'm in a complete loss right now over the mistrust, the betrayal, the trauma I've endured from these people, the lies they're telling. And I look at Jesus and he's not looking like there's nothing wrong. He's upset too. But he's also not surprised. He's not confused. He's not scratching his head saying, wow, I had no idea Judas was like that. I'm sorry I picked him. My bad. No. Peter says the scripture had to be fulfilled. It was necessary. God's sovereignty means that Jesus knew about Judas, and actually Jesus inspired David to write about Judas, that it was going to happen. That's why Jesus handpicked Judas out of the 12, knowing his betrayal. And every time you see Jesus pick this guy, knowing he would betray him, knowing this guy had a devil in him, knowing this. Matthew Henry writes, Judas Iscariot is always named last, and with that black brand upon his name, who also betrayed him, which intimates that from the first, Christ knew what a wretch he was, that he had a devil, that he proved to be a traitor. Yet Christ took him among the apostles that it might not be a surprise and discouragement to his church if at any time the vilest scandal should break out in the best societies. But there is a day of discovery and separation coming when hypocrites will be unmasked and discarded. Friends, God's sovereignty means that no traitor in this church is getting away with anything. In fact, the church is actually the safest spot on earth for that very reason. Paul says Christ laid down his life for his bride, the church. King Jesus is going to protect the church and going to vindicate her. To avoid the church because of hurt and hypocrisy, and yes, I know it hurts, is actually to stay away, though, from what is nearest and dearest to Jesus' heart, what He treasures. What do you think He's gonna protect? And actually, this is important, and to avoid going to church because of pain is actually to reduce your experience of how much Jesus loves you. What do you mean, Joel? Jesus never asks you to do or experience anything he hasn't done or experienced himself. We don't want church hurt, I know it. But when it happens, and it will, you can say, ouch, that really hurt. That brother who I thought loved me, that hurt. My heart is broken, I feel traumatized, but that's just a pinprick compared to the hurt and heartbreak Jesus Christ experienced for me at Calvary's cross after being betrayed. How much more he loves me when I realize that. Friends, we can let comfortable consumerism keep us out of church or from investing much in church. Or we can let devoted discipleship lead us into deeper relationship with Jesus despite the danger. Seeing God's sovereign plan includes his including traitors in our midst. Now some of us get a little squeamish when we hear about God prophesying Judas' betrayal. It sounds fatalistic, doesn't it? Did not Judas have a choice? Didn't he have free will? Couldn't he have followed Jesus and repented? Yes. Calvin writes, Judas may not be excused on the ground that what befell him was prophesied, since he fell away, not through compulsion of the prophecy, but through the wickedness of his own heart. Judas freely choose to do what he wanted to do in his heart, even as it was in God's plan for Judas to betray Jesus. And I know some of you are like, Joel, you're not helping me. How do I bring together free will and God's sovereignty? How do you mesh them? Well, stop trying. Stop worrying about it. You're not qualified for the job. Only God can do that, all right? Speaking of heart choices, point two is brokenhearted by betrayal. Important question. that we need to ask when we read any Bible text is, who is God for us here? Who is God revealing himself to be? We saw God is sovereign, right? Start. Next, we see something crucial in the very first recorded prayer ever in the early church. Verse 24, look. They pray, you, Lord, who know the hearts of all. In Greek, it's one word, kardiognostes. You hear the word kardio, right? It's one word. It means heart knower. Addressing God as heart knower. It's only found in Acts and only used by the early church. Why do they adopt this new way of addressing God in prayer? They see they need heart help. For three years, the disciples were gung-ho. They're up to the job advancing the kingdom. Remember, Jesus gave them power to cast out demons, to heal the sick. They come back, say, yay, Jesus, we're kicking butt. Look at all the demons we're making them. And Jesus says, don't rejoice in that. Stop it, guys. Rejoice, your names are written in heaven. But they think they got it. They think that they can conquer the world. They're excited, right? And then, in fact, they're constantly fighting. I'm better than him. I should be at the right hand of Jesus. I should have the power. They think they can get it, right? Then came that night in the upper room. Christ's last supper. There's really three parts to this scene. Real quick. First, Jesus says, one of you is going to betray me. Part two, he sets out the supper, says, this bread is my body. This blood, this wine is blood for the forgiveness of sins. That's part two. And then lastly, right after they finish eating, Jesus says, you all will fall away. You all will fall away. And Peter, you're gonna do it grand style. Three times you're gonna deny me. And to a man, all of them say, nope, not me, I'll never deny you. So why does Jesus sandwich forgiveness of sins between prophecies of betrayal and denial? Three parts. Jesus is showing why he came with that meal. He came to save sinners in his coming death on the cross that night, the next day. He's saying as he addresses the 12, oh, you think you can stay with me? Nuh-uh, I see right in your hearts. I see you. I see you. And none of them believe. No, you don't see my heart, Jesus. I know my heart better than you. And crash. They all fail so badly and so obviously, don't they? Acts begins with Jesus saying, I'm about to hand over the kingdom of God mission to you. Right after this scene. Not even two months ago. And where do they go? they go straight to the upper room, likely the same place. The same place where Jesus saw their hearts. And what do they do? They get down on their knees and they start calling for help from the heart knower. You know the hearts of all men, because we don't know our own hearts. They see that everybody and anybody is capable of the worst sin. Robert Murray McShane said this, the seeds of every known sin lie within each of our own hearts. You believe that? It's what the Bible teaches, and it's called total depravity. Now that's worse than it sounds, but it's still really bad. You're saying, Joel, stop it, I'm no Jeffrey Dahmer, come on now, I'm no Charles Manson, I'm not Hitler. Thank God you're not, yes, I agree, you're not. But if you think you're okay because you're not them, you don't know your own heart. You just haven't been in a situation, by God's grace, where your worst can come out. I remember a Russian history professor I had named Dmitry Shlapentalk, and he really loved to just rail on America and Western culture, and he would constantly quote Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Okay, he's in these Russian gulags, he's writing to Westerners, he's saying, oh, you Westerners, don't think you're better than us, don't think you're not capable of the atrocities being committed in Stalin's gulags. He had this incredible quote. The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. You hear what he's saying? He's saying there's no good guys, bad guys. He's saying there's no black hats on these people, white hats on these people. Now, we like to look down on others. We all do. We like to make others, they're the enemy. They're the bad guys. Our leaders say this all the time. They lead us, right? Oh, the Democrats, they're horrible people. Oh, the Republicans, they're awful. The rich, they don't care about the poor. The poor, they're just out to game the system. Those people, they're cheats, they're liars. You ever look down on someone who's lied? Ever talked about them? Do you ever cheat? You ever lie? Well, Joel, I'm just complicated. Come on now. Miroslav Volf once said, we're constantly doing this double exclusion, all the time. He says this, I exclude the enemy from the community of humans, even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners. Here he says this, but no one can be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long without overcoming this double exclusion. This is what happened to the early church. Peter now sees his own heart. The 12 are seeing, Peter remembers Jesus saying, the only reason that the devil isn't getting you is because I have prayed for you, Peter, that he wouldn't sift you like wheat. Broken's Peter now sees that there's just a short step between him and Judas. The only reason he is only a denier and not a betrayer is because of God's grace that grabbed hold of him. Do you appreciate God's grabbing grace? Let me illustrate. Since Mark got up, I'll pick on him. Imagine me and Mark, I go over to hang out at his house one night, all right? We decide to have a few beers, and then a few more, and then a few more. We get really, really drunk, all right? And we decide, you know, in our drunken state, we hatch a scheme, we're gonna go rob a store, all right? And I'll, and by the way, I'm using alcohol here, because did you ever hear anybody in your church home say this the other day? Oh, he was just drunk, he's not like that. No, he is like that. The thing with alcohol is it actually, all those things that inhibit you, right, it simply lowers your inhibition so those seeds in your heart, those seeds of sin that won't sprout. So back to me and Mark, since he's out of here, I can about pick on him. So we get really drunk, right, and we hatch a scheme to go rob the store, and Sam comes over at that time, knocks on the door, walks in, all right, and there's me and Mark, and we tell him about our plan, and Sam says, that's not a good idea. Don't do that, Joel. Don't do that, Mark." And we're saying, no, we're going to go do it. We put on our coats. We're ready to hop out the door. And Sam's got to stop us. And he grabs ahold of both of us at the same time, each by one jacket. Now my jacket rips off. I'm out. Mark's doesn't. Sam holds Mark down, talks him out of it. He falls asleep. The next morning, I wake up. I'm on the news. I robbed the store, killed a security guard while I'm at it. I'm now sitting in jail. Another church scandal, right, Pastor Joel? What'd he do? Mark decides he's gonna come visit me. I'm a death row now. Mark comes and visits me. You know what Mark isn't gonna say? You awful thief. You numbskull. How stupid you were. How could you do such a stupid, selfish thing, Joel? Why wouldn't he say that? Because Mark knows the only reason that I'm on death row and he isn't, It's because God gave him a Kevlar coat. A Kevlar coat. He knows he isn't a better person with a better heart than me. Mark is saying, there but for the Kevlar grace of God go I. Peter and the 120 are praying in the supper room because they see they have failed. They have seen their hearts and what they're capable of. And they know they're capable of further failure. That's why they're looking right now at the grace of a sovereign God who knows their hearts. They're praying to the one who sees in their hearts and offers forgiveness and healing. Friends, this is why I'm saying failure is actually the foundation for a gospel community, and we're gonna see that in Acts 2. No one is looking down on anybody else because they all see they're saved by grace alone. They can be vulnerable in this group, right? When you've been that big a failure and everybody else has, I can go to Cindy and say, guess what I think about doing? Guess what I did this week? I can talk to Bob. I can share what's wrong with me. Because nobody's looking down on anybody else. We don't have the good people and the bad people and the great Christians and the bad Christians. No. That's how a gospel culture becomes a safe space. A safe space, not safe for sin, no, but safe to confess sin, confess shame to hearts that have not yet been healed from certain things. And that's what Heart City is. We're a safe space where ruined reputations can be repaired. Failed folks can be forgiven. How does it happen? The last point, and this will be brief, we guard the gospel. We guard the gospel. The scene ends with Peter saying it's necessary to establish church leadership. Just because the church had a pastor scandal doesn't mean, well, we're never gonna appoint officers again. No. Two men nominated, actually, it says in NIV. Men for office. It's providential we're opening officer nominations today. Why is it necessary to nominate men to be church leaders? To guard the gospel. To guard the gospel. Notice the qualifications. They have to have the full gospel experience. They have to have followed Jesus from the start of his ministry all the way to the ascension. They gotta have the whole Jesus. They must have personal relationship with him, followed him for years. They must have experiential knowledge, life, death, resurrection, ascension, all of the Jesus that was presented. And they realize how important it is that these guys also have hearts that actually love Jesus. Love Jesus more than the accolades of ministry, right? There's a lot of guys, I talk to guys all the time, I wanna be a great preacher, I wanna do this and all. Why? It's great. Have a lot of smarts. We like guys who are very talented, great motivational speakers, get people really wowed. Charisma. Not these guys, they don't want that. In fact, it's interesting, Mattias. We never hear about him again. It seems like he became less, that Jesus might become more. They choose one, they want one from the heart knower. They go to the heart knower, one who loves Jesus. We can't see into his heart. And the name's actually, it's interesting, Justice or Persep. He seems to be a Shuwit. His name has real meaning, honor. But the Lord's decision is for the less impressive candidate, who we never hear from again. You see, they're no longer looking at the outward signs. Judas must have looked like a pretty incredible guy. They now see it's all about the heart. It doesn't matter what this person looks like on the outside. And it reminds me of that scene where Samuel went to anoint one of Jesse's sons, right, to be king. Samuel sees Eliab, firstborn son, he's strong, he's capable. He's like, surely the Lord's anointed is here. And God says to him, do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the thing people look at. The Lord, people look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. When we have leaders who have hearts for God, who are willing and able to defend the gospel, we will have a community that begins to look to the word and devote themselves to prayer. And we will become a safe space where we will play the long game. And by multiple exposures to the grace of God and Jesus Christ, people will be changed. That's what a gospel community will look like. and we'll be a church empowered, yes, to continue the mission, playing the long game here in the inner city, even when we fall flat on our faces, which we will again, we will, we will. But it's funny that while we can't do more with less, here's my closing thought, we can't do more with less, right? That's God's specialty. We have hope in even the worst failures because God's power is made perfect in our, weakness, our weakness. Amen? Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we want to thank you right now for all the times we have failed, and we also want to thank you that you're the God who restores. We want to pray for Heart City Church, that despite the failure, our own failures, and despite the failures of the church, that we will see the power of the gospel is far greater because it is the power that you give that turns this world upside down. I ask and pray that you'll work in our hearts and lives. We pray, heart knower, that you will look into our hearts and help us to see the things that we don't want to see or help others here to see them and let us receive that. and faith and hope and in love, trusting that you want to work through us, community, to make us more and more like Jesus. And that's what we want, Lord. We want to be more like your son, Jesus. We thank you for sending him and pouring out your spirit that we might become more like him as we come to you in earnest prayer. May we be such a church, empowered to impact the world, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.